AP PhotoOrlando Magic center Dwight Howard, in street clothes, has a laugh with Glen Davis, who had 16 points and 16 rebounds in his place. There were no laughs for the Detroit Pistons after the 119-89 blowout, however.

ORLANDO – The Detroit Pistons,
even at their lowest early-season points, never looked like a team
looking forward to the offseason. That all changed in two losses in
Florida the last two days, by a combined 53 points, including a
season-worst blowout Monday which left head coach Lawrence Frank at
his own personal low point.

Frank called the 119-89 loss to
the Orlando Magic “embarrassing” and “humiliating.”

And he made it clear, with nine
games left, that the Pistons have to choose their direction.

“The bottom line is there's a
fork in the road and we've got to make a decision,” Frank said.
“Do we want to be the group that started the season, or do we want
to be the group that played the next couple months of the season?”

The Pistons (21-36) are still one
game over .500 since their 4-20 start.

They didn't look like it.

“That was the type of game we
played back when we were 4-20,” Austin Daye said.

The Pistons came to Orlando to
play a team in turmoil, centered around the Magic's star player,
Dwight Howard, who sat out the game with a bad back.

They leave with a little turmoil
of their own, a discouraged team, and a crestfallen coach.

“We took the path of least
resistance and it's just very, very discouraging,” Frank said. “We
have a decision to make as a group how hard want to go forward. This
is where character is revealed, team character, individual character.
This is where you make a statement of who you are as an individual
and as a group.”

Frank said he and his coaching
staff “saw some warning shots, even in the wins prior, that there
was some slippage.”

But nothing foretold a
season-worst loss, he said.

“I'm a freakin' miserable person
to be around any time we lose,” Frank said. “But the fact is,
4-20 was part of the process to getting to wherever the heck our
record was after that. But then, to me, I see us reverting back. I
see us taking steps backward and that's frustrating. We're all part
of it. You can't absolve yourself, starting with me, and we've got
to figure out which group we want to be.”

One night earlier, in a 23-point
loss at Miami, Frank was asked whether he thought that loss was an
anomaly. He resorted to the old coach's standby and said he would
have to review the video.

There was no such crutch Monday.

“I thought we were moving in the
right direction,” he said. “But right now, we'll have to see
whether it was a hiccup, or whether that's just part of who we are.”

Greg Monroe, one of several
starters who sat out virtually the entire second half, when told of
Frank's post-game remarks, said, “everybody's disappointed, it's
not just him – it's all of us, as a group.”

“I don't think,” Monroe added,
“that mailing it in or packing it in is an option for us.”

But after Glen Davis had nine
first-quarter rebounds – as many as the entire Pistons team – as
part of the highest-scoring first half against the Pistons this year
(64) and the most points scored in a game against them this year,
that is precisely the crossroads Frank said his team has reached.

“It's discouraging,” he said,
“because when you don't compete, that's a reflection on all of us.
And that's tough to take.”